Classified ad payment

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

I own a small weekly newspaper and get a lot of emails asking me to give a quote for a classified ad to run for 4/6/8 weeks. The ads are the work from home or sell a dog type scam.

I have sent a couple of rate quotes back just to see if they will pay my enormous fee. Funny how a 3 line text ad can cost $259 to run for 6 weeks. Wow, my newspaper must be special huh? Anyway, most send CC info, some very detailed and some just a name, number and 3 didit code. Since I don't process CC's and would not run it through even if I could because I would hate to take advantage of whoever the card was stolen from I have no way to see if they are valid.

I did request that a couple of the scammers transfer the ad cost from their cc to a paypal account and so far most dropped communication but one guy wanted to do a bank transfer. Well, that is not on my agenda either. I'm currently in a 12 step program to help me with my addiction to being stupid, ha ha.

So, I have no way of knowing if other papers get screwed if they process the card. But the number of scam classified ads actually in print is large.

Anybody have ideas or thoughts on this? After reading about a lot of scams on this site I'm wondering if they do actually pay for the ads. No ads, no victims.

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:33 pm

Pistol,
Welcome to 419Eater,
I've moved your thread to General Chat because it doesn't appear to have any connection with advance fee fraud (419) which is the main topic of our Forums.
I'm sure that some of our members will have opinions and advice for you on the type of fraud you are referring to.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

Thanks!!

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:41 pm

Hi Pistol and welcome to Eater. Smile

I rarely get time to read a local paper, so this is something that has passed me by, but I am not surprised at scammers trying it on anywhere. The "work from home" stuff is not really our thing, but the puppy scammers look much more like the kind of thing we cover. Were you thinking of trying your hand at baiting? If so, please do be sure to set yourself up with an anonymous email, rather than using a work-related one. Smile

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

Thanks eight, I suppose not many newspaper owners discuss scammers. Is there a place I can submit the cc info they give me to see if the card info is stolen? I guess I could pass along the email and other info I have on them if it would help the victim who had their info stolen.

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:57 pm

If you know it is dodgy, you can PM card info to one of our admins, Lotta, and she will make sure it gets to the right place. Smile

To check in advance, though, you'd need access to the online authorisation that shops use, I guess, and I am afraid I don't know how that would work in the US. We have loads of bright people here, though, so I expect someone will be able to help you more than I. Smile

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 4

Thanks again eight. I think I'll gather the cc info and send it to the mod. Even if the cards are good I have no use for them.